Confinement, deconfinement and the photon propagator in 3D cQED on the lattice

We report on a lattice study of the gauge boson propagator of 3D compact QED in Landau gauge at zero and finite temperature. Non-perturbative effects are reflected by the generation of a mass m and by an anomalous dimension alpha. These effects can be attributed to monopoles and are absent in the propagator of the regular part of the gauge field.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, talk presented by A.S. at 5th International Conference on Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum, Gargnano, Italy, 10-14 Sep 200

Merging Automobile Insurance Regulatory Bodies: The Case of Atlantic Canada

The recent automobile liability insurance crisis in Atlantic Canada has prompted the four provincial legislations (Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island) to setup a task force to redesign, if necessary, the personal automobile insurance system. After reviewing some of the most interesting new regulatory changes, our paper proposes a new area of discussion: The merger of the four provincial insurance regulatory bodies to combat insurance fraud. We base our paper on the principle that recent premium increases are mainly due to an increase in insurance fraud. We show that merging the regulatory bodies may reduce insurance fraud if the merger allows savings on the average audit cost and on the development of better fraud detection technology. Finally, we suggest a fraud reducing insurance taxation scheme to finance insurance fraud investigations. La récente crise dans le Canada Atlantique au sujet de l'assurance de la responsabilité civile des automobilistes a contraint les gouvernements des quatre provinces (Terre-Neuve et Labrador, Nouveau-Brunswick, Nouvelle-Écosse et l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard) à mettre en place une commission pour étudier la possibilité de réorganiser, si nécessaire, leur système d'assurance automobile. Après avoir analysé les plus intéressantes modifications à la réglementation mises en place dans ces provinces, notre étude offre un nouveau terrain de discussion, soit la fusion des quatre réglementations provinciales afin de combattre la fraude à l'assurance. Notre étude se base sur le principe que les récentes augmentations dans les primes sont attribuables à une augmentation de la fraude à l'assurance dans ces provinces. En fusionnant les réglementations des quatre provinces, nous montrons que la fraude à l'assurance peut diminuer si la fusion permet d'épargner une partie du coût de vérification encouru par les assureurs lors de réclamations douteuses. Également, nous montrons qu'une telle fusion peut permettre de développer une meilleure technologie de vérification des réclamations. Nous terminons le papier en suggérant un système de taxation particulier qui non seulement peut financer les investissements nécessaires pour combattre la fraude, mais peut également réduire la fraude directement.insurance fraud, asymmetric information, insurance taxation, public policy, fraude à l'assurance, information asymétrique, taxation à l'assurance, politique publique

Merging automobile regulatory bodies: The case of Atlantic Canada

The recent automobile liability insurance crisis in Atlantic Canada has prompted the four provincial legislations (Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island) to setup a task force to redesign, if necessary, the personal automobile insurance system. After reviewing some of the most interesting new regulatory changes, our paper proposes a new area of discussion: The merger of the four provincial insurance regulatory bodies to combat insurance fraud. We base our paper on the principle that recent premium increases are mainly due to an increase in insurance fraud. We show that merging the regulatory bodies may reduce insurance fraud if the merger allows savings on the average audit cost and on the development of better fraud detection technology. Finally, we suggest a fraud reducing insurance taxation scheme to finance insurance fraud investigations. --Insurance Fraud,Asymmetric Information,Insurance Taxation,Public Policy

Studying the infrared region in Landau gauge QCD

We report on the progress we made in studying the infrared behavior of the ghost and gluon dressing functions in Landau gauge. Related to this we also investigate a running coupling given in terms of those functions and compare our results to those coming from the Dyson-Schwinger approach. We present first numerical results for the SU(3) ghost-ghost-gluon vertex renormalization constant. In addition the spectrum of low-lying eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the Faddeev-Popov operator is determined. The saturation of the ghost propagator in terms of those eigenvalues and eigenmodes is discussed at lower momenta.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, talk presented at Lattice 2005 (Topology and Confinement

Self-Stabilizing TDMA Algorithms for Dynamic Wireless Ad-hoc Networks

In dynamic wireless ad-hoc networks (DynWANs), autonomous computing devices set up a network for the communication needs of the moment. These networks require the implementation of a medium access control (MAC) layer. We consider MAC protocols for DynWANs that need to be autonomous and robust as well as have high bandwidth utilization, high predictability degree of bandwidth allocation, and low communication delay in the presence of frequent topological changes to the communication network. Recent studies have shown that existing implementations cannot guarantee the necessary satisfaction of these timing requirements. We propose a self-stabilizing MAC algorithm for DynWANs that guarantees a short convergence period, and by that, it can facilitate the satisfaction of severe timing requirements, such as the above. Besides the contribution in the algorithmic front of research, we expect that our proposal can enable quicker adoption by practitioners and faster deployment of DynWANs that are subject changes in the network topology

The influence of Gribov copies on the gluon and ghost propagator

The dependence of the gluon and ghost propagator in pure SU(3) gauge theory on the choice of Gribov copies in Landau gauge is studied. Simulations were performed on several lattice sizes at $\beta$=5.8, 6.0 and 6.2. In the infrared region the ghost propagator turns out to depend on the choice, while the impact on the gluon propagator is not resolvable. Also the eigenvalue distribution of the Faddeev-Popov operator is sensitive to Gribov copies.Comment: Talk presented at Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum VI, Villasimius, Sardinia, Italy, September 21-25, 2004, 3 pages, 2 figure

Matter near to the Endpoint of the Electroweak Phase Transition

Wave functions and the screening mass spectrum in the 3D SU(2)-Higgs model near to the phase transition line below the endpoint and in the crossover region are calculated. In the crossover region the changing spectrum versus temperature is examined showing the aftermath of the phase transition at lower Higgs mass. Large sets of operators with various extensions are used allowing to identify wave functions in position space.Comment: 3 pages, 8 figures, LaTex+espcrc2.sty; LATTICE98(electroweak